


Health and Sand

by Seyasoya



Series: Consolation [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Darth Vader Lives, Darth Vader Redemption, Darth Vader doesn't remove his mask, Father-Son Relationship, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-10-26 08:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10783491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seyasoya/pseuds/Seyasoya
Summary: Luke purges Darth Vader, or should I say, Anakin Skywalker, from the Sith, the Emperor, and the Second Death Star, and into a Rebel medical base. Surely, Anakin has to repay his son with something when he wakes up.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first part of a series called "Consolation". Originally written for May 4, but became too lazy to publish on deadline.
> 
> first chapter published on may 11, 2017.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin Skywalker unwillingly escapes death. With, of course, aid from his son, Luke.

“But you’ll die.”

There was some pondering made by the man in the black suit, in the midst of the ground below them about to blow up.

“Nothing can stop that now.”

Luke's eyes filled with a fear that has plagued his father for decades. "Nooooo!!!"

Anakin only sighed. Luke swooped up his arm of robots around his neck, and started walking towards his decoy Imperial shuttle. But, as the floor behind them start crumbling down below, their limbs became weaker and weaker. "If you take me now, I shall gravely pay for the mistakes that I have made. Worser than this, Luke."

“But there is another way! Come on... _faster_ , father! I don’t want to get blown up into smithereens!”

“Let us keep pushing forward, then.”

Father and son arrived at the dock of the shuttle, making it - barely. Once Luke put his father on a medical bed and put on an IV, he sped up until a colossal bomb of a Death Star detonated behind him within seconds, and accelerated into the sparkling nothingness.

* * *

"I need medical attention **immediately**! He's dying, his heart rate's slowing down, and his prosthetics are dead!" he heard Luke shout through his comm to the medical base.

"Sure thing, commander. Please enter Bay 5, Hangar 04."

The freighter swam across the galactic pond to enter the base. Soon medic droids ascended Vader to a healing room, and into a floating sea of bacta. "The medic will come to assist you shortly," the droid announced. They were the last words Vader heard of anyone, really.

Luke stared at his father's near-lifeless body with his untainted blue eyes, and hoped. Hoped that all of this will procure into something better. But was hope all that worth it?

* * *

It was only fitting when the medic knocked on the door, entered, and peered at the man near Luke, he **froze** like he was on Hoth. The sight of Luke Skywalker, the Pilot who Blew Up the Death Star (and helped in the one only a few hours ago), standing and watching over the Emperor's right-hand man, "Darth Vader", the man who massacred millions of people for the Empire's, and by extension, his own selfish ambitions, with those compassionate eyes of his, was truly shocking for the lone medic. Luke asked him, begged him repeatedly for some further advice and assistance, but the medic couldn't hear his wails. All Luke could see on his face was a set of judgmental eyes.

It was time, then, for the medic, to bring out his commlink and press his button. "Ma'am Mothma... I see, i-it's Darth Vader."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A potentially lethal vegetative state.

The steps of many a Rebel Soldier broke into the facility Luke, the medic, and Darth Vader were in, and flooded in like a great purge. "Men, hold your fire," a sergeant shouted.

Then, the medic spoke up. "Commander Skywalker, the man you are trying to save right now, has not killed, hundreds or thousands, but millions of innocent people who simply believed in such a delusional cause. Do you know what you're even trying to do here?"

"I do know one thing, medic. He has killed the Emperor, the man who orchestrated it all."

"Engage!" And soon, blaster bolts began to emerge from each soldier's blaster whilst the medic fled the scene. Luke could only deflect each shot and push back the soldiers with the Force, as he did not want to kill any of them.

_Does this make any sense to you, Luke? All of this rescuing? Think, think... feel the Force rush through your veins..._

But Luke's body of flesh could only manage to keep up. Each remaining Rebel Soldier had one intention in mind: hit. Soon, Luke's body began to tire, his arms burning, no longer able to concentrate. That's when a blaster bolt hit him in the shoulder.

He screamed as he caressed his left arm with his prosthetic hand. _What's gonna happen to me now?_ his thoughts lingered on. But all were hopeless as his eyesight began to fade, and collapsed on the medical floor.

* * *

Anakin woke up in the bacta tank, and to his horror, Luke was laying on the floor unconsciously, with a blaster bolt on his shoulder, and the Rebel Soldiers approaching his injured son with a look of "take him away!".

Anakin could think of only one solution.

* * *

I have to get out of this tank and get medical attention. This time, for him, he discerned. By luck, a medic droid happened to peer in through the doorway. "Oh dear! Look at the scene. It's horrific! Oh, a man's conscious in the bacta tank! I shall call the medic immediately."

The same medic came in. "Look, _Darth._ If I give Commander Skywalker treatment, you must show me proof that you aren't under the Emperor's influence anymore."

He showed his eyes. His eyes weren't a glowing, fierce yellow, but instead a calming, vivid blue. The medic was taken aback. "Oh my..."

The medic hurriedly removed the bacta from Anakin and set him on a medical bed. "What shall I call you now?"

 "Skywalker. Call me what I have been called before."

"Ok. Hold that for a moment, Skywalker. Your son is in critical condition. Let me take him in bacta-"

"Surely it was only a shot in the shoulder."

"M-mr. Skywalker, due to th-the nature of the blaster bolt, we may sustain Commander Skywalker in a b-b-bacta tank for... only a few days," he refuted Anakin's argument, but he still had not forgotten the terror of his past, as a simple refute may cause someone serious consequences. "However," he regained back his calm. "he may not live after that. For clarification, I will call the medical head."

He picked up his commlink. "Calling in, Florin. Calling in, Corona Florin. Requesting your presence at med room 327. It's immensely urgent."

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The medic head, Corona Florin, and the slightly unconventional treatment.

When Corona Florin entered the room, he first saw a patient in the tank, Medic Lupal Stasiom, and the man who was previously Darth Vader. But he did feel a different Force aura than the one associated with Dark Side users. "So you must have been brought back to the light?" he directed a statement towards Anakin. Perhaps, unconventionally.

"Indeed. In fact, it was my son, Luke, who brought me back. Now, you must bring _him_ back."

"I see. What happened to him?"

Lupal Stasiom spoke up. "Sir, Commander Skywalker appeared to have been shot in the left shoulder with a purple blaster bolt."

"A purple one? Interesting." He went to the tank and saw Luke, suspended in the half-slime, half-liquid substance. "Mr. Skywalker, the treatment is slightly irregular. This involves retrieving a blood transfusion from a relative, but also an item: the ground of his home planet."

"That is ridiculous! Why would you need such a thing-"

"Mr. Skywalker. I was once a Padawan in the Jedi Order. My master and I left it before Order 66. There he taught me how to Force-heal both Force-sensitive and non-Force-sensitive beings, and there I joined the Rebel Alliance, hiding my powers from secret. The purple bolt that Commander Skywalker was shot with has Force-inhibiting properties. If we don't get this treatment quickly, he will not be able to recuperate."

Anakin was taken aback. _He hid his Force signature away from me, something that even_ I _can't detect. He must truly know what he's doing._ "Very well. He had lived on Tatooine, the same planet as I have lived on." _I'll try to stitch the pieces that I have torn back. If I can._

Medic Stasiom interjected. "Mr. Skywalker, I shall dispatch a crew..."

"I shall go there myself."

"Mr. Skywalker! Do you know the risks going back on Tatooine?!? People will exact revenge on you and-"

"I shall make amends. This is for my son, not me."

"Sir," Florin advised. "Place the sand in this jar, and fill it up to this red line up top. That will be enough sand for the commander."

Anakin took the jar and grasped it as if it were his own life he was holding. He exited the room, sensing something, a determination he has not felt since...

He went unnoticed by the rest of the Rebel Alliance and left on an unsuspecting transport en route to the backwater planet of Tatooine, a home he has never had for more than decades. Now, he must return and gather up the coarse, rough, irritating and gets-everywhere substance of sand.

It felt ridiculous to the fallen Dark Lord of the Sith, but then again, " _it is for my son, not me."_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, school just started for me, and you'll be seeing more tidbit kinds of chapters. Notwithstanding, I hope you guys enjoyed it.
> 
> Also, while I was writing this, I kept of thinking of this damn video. Cheers.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi5jjXTPtyY


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin Skywalker just doesn't like sand, and the memories it brings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I heavily got information about the galaxy from Legends material, however, I didn't include any kind of EU characters in. So, it's just useful information for this.
> 
> Also, school has taken up my days. This is most probably a shitty chapter, but I just really wanted this to get out of the cutting floor.
> 
> So, enjoy.

"I don't like sand. It's coarse, rough, irritating, and it gets everywhere."

Anakin was approaching his home planet. He readied himself. His clothes were no longer a terrifying suit, but prosthetic limbs and a lifebox hidden under his desert robes. He still was clutching the jar given to him, even when he was piloting the ship.

It soon landed on a place not too far Mos Espa, the place he used to live, until that fateful day...

He stepped out of his transport and into the sweltering, dry land of Tatooine, clutching the jar.

 _I could just pick up some sand and leave. I don't have to look around and remind myself of a past life..._ he thought. But he started walking around.

He arrived on Mos Espa, the spaceport than enslaved him to do a disgusting creature's bidding. The freedom of a little boy decided by the success of a mere pod race. How that same creature led him to a farmer's moisture farm, that would chain all the way to his mom's unneeded pain, suffering, and death. 

He looked around for some transport to go around to. "Hey, over here!" Anakin shouted over to the Rodian with a land speeder. "Can you take me to Mos Eisley?"

"That'll cost ya four credits, sir."

Anakin placed the few coins on the driver's hand and they sped up towards yet another spaceport that changed someone else's life...

"Hey, sir, I'm really glad that the Empire got torn apart now. They took away everything' away from me, ya know? My wife was on the Death Star, slavin' her whole day in n' out. I worked as a servant for Jabba. Oh, thank the stars it's all over. All gone; _Vader_ , the Emperor, all of it."

Anakin really didn't know how to respond. "Me too, I guess."

"You kidding? You ain't overjoyed 'bout it?"

"I mean, I did serve the Empire. I really didn't like it. I guess it was for the money... I supported the Empire, and yet... I also, kind of, supported the Rebels..."

"How is that even possible?" the Rodian speeder driver smiled. 

"Hatred towards the Emperor, perhaps? The Force is a weird thing. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together?" Anakin shrugged. 

"I guess. I mean- oh! We're here in Eisley."

"Thanks, man." Anakin got out of the speeder, into the grainy sand again, and waved. But he saw a peek of a lifebox. That same lifebox that came with a certain Sith Lord's terrifying suit, his crimson red saber, and cold demeanor. The Rodian suddenly gasped.

"I knew it! You are Vader!" he grew suspicious.

Anakin paused, and then sighed. "Not anymore."

* * *

 He lurked around Mos Eisley, looking around for that place that bound a certain young farmer boy and a Jedi master, with a rowdy smuggler and his furry sidekick, and the rest is history. 

He found it, and it was filled (still) with all kinds of creatures and shady deals, having a blast with their drinks.

"I'll have one," he told the bartender, and started cooking up whatever concoction.

It felt good to be sitting on a stool, arms against the earthy table. It felt good to relax.  His robotic hand holding a glass of standard, and earthy blue milk, he wandered around the cantina a bit. 

But as he strolled around Chalmun's Cantina, he noticed that pairs of eyes were wandering on him too. As if something had gone terribly wrong. As if...

"Hey! It's Darth Vader! The one that Sheratan the Rodian told us!" came a shout from behind Anakin's discerning ear. "Attack!"

"Here we go again..." he muttered, and the cantina soon filled with dancing red bolts. He, out of his anger, tried to Force choke them, but remembered. _You're with the Light Side again. Gotta act like one now._

So he threw his bantha blue milk out of the glass and splattered on a Twi'lek smuggler. No saber, no dark side abilities... run! And so he scurried, with his beige, earthy robes following him suit.

He wasn't as fast as he was when he was a more youthful Anakin Skywalker. But his prosthetic limbs that replaced the chopped-out ones by his former Jedi master had to do. He dashed towards the opening, blaster bolts still aimed towards him.

But they were like Stormtroopers.

Using the Force, he concurred a shield that pushed the bolts away from him, and harmlessly onto the walls of the cantina. "Whether you're Darth Vader or Anakin Skywalker; it doesn't matter anymore. You exacted revenge among the Jedi. Now, we do to you!" shouted the crowd.

But he was now gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even more chocked with sand than the previous chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh that Star Wars moment when you can't comply with legends stuff. Super hard. Even canon material.

Anakin Skywalker gasped.

It wasn't the gasping that came with distraught, pain, or surprise. He was too simply out of it to comprehend these kind of emotions right now.

He was gasping for more air.

He stumbled across the coarse, rough, irritating, and gets-everywhere qualities of sand. He laid down onto his knees, gasping for more breath with his silent Rebel respirator. _What just happened?_ he thought while looking up.

All he saw was a blue and white sky, with more sand. _Sand, sand, sand... Can this place even be more teeming with sand than it is?_ he bellowed.

He thought of it. Of the sand, and the sand people. Humans don't belong here. A ragged place, the survival of the fittest, hunt or be hunted...

And yet...

Every time he strayed from the sand, something terrible happens. _Luke had a wonderful adventure once his feet got deprived of this material. It is only I who was "blessed" with this "blessing".  
_

Every time he strayed from the sand, his life turns upside-down. What have I done?

He rose up, and started to walk. His feet clashing with the sand.

Like a nomad; like what Obi-Wan would've done for Anakin's own twins.

He kept striding against the grainy material, his brown and tan robes appearing to hover in mid-air. Seeming to be looking for something, a place to get away from it all. Away from that spaceport, cantina; away from everything.

He seemed to find something in the distance. 

He started running towards it, ever-increasing in speed, tapping into the Force to get there. Soon, his boots began to fill with more irritating sand, and making that something from a speck of beige and black to something that looked like a home and a moisture gathering area.

 _Wait... that place... that looks very familiar,_ he slowed his speed, until he striding again against the sand, making sand waves with every dash of his mechanical feet. 

For some strange reason, he felt great disturbance in the Force around the homestead, as if voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. He feared something terrible has happened.

_Wait..._

And he remembered everything.

* * *

 Anakin remembered him visiting the Lars homestead, first as a Jedi Knight, in distress, looking for his dear mother, while his step-father told him she was no more. Then he remembered walking back, with her in his arms, as they buried her under the sand that was their roots. Then he remembered voicing about it over the comm with some troopers and a certain Kaminoan and Mandalorian bounty hunter. They blew this place up, along with his step-brother and his wife. Then he remembered walking along it weeks later with Doctor Aphra, looking at the homestead as an investigator. And now...

This was cruel.

The Lars' homestead was still burned as ever. With the tombstone to the side, he walked in, his towering figure almost bumping into the entrance arch.

He looked at the kitchen. Desolate as ever, and burnt to a crisp.

_The entire homestead was burnt to a crisp._

He was, too.

Anakin wept.

* * *

The Rebel soldiers were guarding at Luke. Guarded the man they had just shot.

"My son..." the sound of a respirator emerged from the bacta tank. It was _his_ _son_ for the taking. What have they done?

Out of anger, he Force-choked all the soldiers who hurt his son. Turning back into the monster that was-  _For family, for..._

This is not the Jedi way... he stopped, the soldiers dropping to the floor, gasping for more air. He looked at his hand, and felt disgusted at it, and his actions.

He wondered if all the effort Luke did to save his father was worth it.

* * *

 

He was outside, by Owen and Beru's tombstones. That thought tasted bitter.

He was just purging out his emotions; crying; catharsis. He thought, _if this was the only time I can cry for everything, I'd take it._

That was enough for a change of heart. He grabbed his jar, and filled it to the line with sand, the same sand that his son used to walk upon, the same sand that he used to walk upon.

He walked all the way to Mos Espa. That was a change of heart, too.

* * *

 

HIs starship was ready to take off. His transport left the hangar bay, and took off, zooming across the stars.

He was ready to leave the sand, to enter into what lies ahead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to agree with Anakin's sentiment: I don't like sand. I don't like the fact that once your aqua shoes touch it, they start to fill up in my shoes, and I start getting sores. And it's really hard to get it out.
> 
> But sand (my metaphor for Tatooine) has been and always will be an integral part of Anakin, and also Vader. 
> 
> I won't say if he'll have anything soft and smooth like Naboo for the next chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin brings sand, and the blood transfusion for Luke. 
> 
> The finale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Curly braces and brackets signify Force communication.

Anakin was back from that place... From hell. Clutching the jar even tighter than before, he dashed his way to the medical room his son was in.

Luke was there in the tank, breaths getting shallower by the hour, a lifeless body lay swimming in the gel.

Corona Florin was there. "I see you have brought the jar, Mr. Skywalker."

"Indeed," he panted. "I have went back to his home planet of Tatooine. I had a few issues, but I got barely scratched.

"I would like to make the bizarre transfusion _now_."

The head medic nodded and motioned Anakin to sit on a chair. He grabbed his many a medical tool and stood beside the former Sith Lord.

"Where the hell are we gonna get your blood from?" the medic chuckled. Anakin didn't find this funny. He motioned to strangle him, but was met by an equal Force push from the medic. "Did you forget?" Corona chuckled once more.

Darth Vader went back to Anakin Skywalker for the day.

Corona Florin found a piece of fatty tissue on his stomach, pinched it a bit, then proceeded to inject a small tube into Anakin's stomach.

"Relax. We need this to go smoothly," Corona murmured. "Now to add the sand in..."

The doctor proceeded to add the jar of sand into the tube bag, and with the Force, it suddenly combined with Anakin's blood to make something entirely different.

"Please rest, Mr. Skywalker, we will give the transfused blood to Commander Skywalker shortly."

Anakin wanted to stay up. To see the life slowly going back into his own son. Eventually, though, what remained of his body got the best in him, and Anakin Skywalker drifted into a peaceful sleep...

Well, not entirely peaceful...

* * *

_The sight of the Rebel soldiers lifted in the air, windpipes crushing, felt so relieving, so satisfying..._

_They deserved to die. They deserved to be punished for what they did to his son..._

_Use your hate... Use your anger..._

_...anger leads to hate... Hate leads to suffering..._

_Darth Vader looked around. His hand up, the bodies of many a soldier only doing what are commanded to do, being lifted and crushed by himself._

_Being crushed by him alone, by his own conscience. His own will._

_And though he had done it before, he thought of what he'd done in front of his own yellowing eyes._

_He dropped the soldiers, unconscious bodies littering and sounding the grey floor. He looked at his shaking prosthetic hand in a sense of regret and desperation._

**_...What has he done-_ **

* * *

Anakin woke up. _The peaceful sleeps always get to me,_ he reckoned.

His blue eyes fluttered, looking up at a white ceiling and a blood bag. He followed the blood-letting pipe to...

His son. Luke.

Here his delicate son was, no longer suspended in the healing fluid known as bacta, but the bed next to him. 

_Father! You're awake!_

_Luke..._ Anakin turned his once-scarred head to the side, and cherished the same eyes he has.

The sight of his son, well and alive, not tethering onto the fine lines of life or death, was such a sigh of relief for the once-Sith. The once cold and impenetrable is now, again like the good old days, warm, vulnerable, and loving. If Luke was his only light left, Anakin would cling to it, never letting the flame out.

His son gave him a smile of thanksgiving.

The Chosen One returned the favor.

* * *

 "Congratulations, Mr. Skywalker. You and Commander Skywalker are both discharged. Your vitals are looking good."

"My deepest gratitude to you, Mr. Florin, and your assistant. Without you, neither me nor my son would ever make it alive."

"It was my pleasure. And, as always, may the Force be with you."

A familiar phrase, that was. Said everywhere, it was in the Jedi Order. "May the Force be with you."

* * *

{"As he once said, 'Do or do not; there is no try.'"}

Here they were, Anakin Skywalker itching to make peace with someone he should've always known.

["She may never have the patience and forgiveness to ever dare that, son."]

"Father, go for it. She is one tough princess, but she has kyber inside that carbonite."

Anakin let those words ring. ["If so, I'll deal with it myself. There's nothing that I shall be afraid of."]

{"There is emotion, yet peace."}

WIth those words, he left Anakin, who knocked on the wooden door, and peered through the small hole.

Someone else peered in too. "Sweetheart! It's for you!"


End file.
